Hi Gustavo
This is a very good point.
If I see that some software I use regularly has gone from 7.5 to 7.6,
say, I wouldn't rush to upgrade unless I knew it fixed a problem that
affected me. I'm pretty sure that I would upgrade from 7.5 to to 8.0 far
more quickly, if for no other reason that the psychological one of wanting
to be using what my head tells me must be an improvement over my current
version.
Of course release notes are available to determine what really has
changed but I rather suspect that most users never read them.
The discussion of the different motivators for development and marketing
people is very interesting. When I was a developer neither I nor anybody in
my teams was ever let anywhere near sales activities - and I think for very
good reasons.
Cheers
Nige
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------------------------------
*From:* Gustavo Buzzatti Pacheco <gbpacheco@gmail.com>
*Sent:* 05 April 2023 22:05
*To:* TDF Devs <libreoffice@lists.freedesktop.org>; TDF Marketing <
marketing@global.libreoffice.org>; TDF Design <
design@global.libreoffice.org>
*Subject:* Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Re: [libreoffice-design] Moving
to LibreOffice 8?
Hi Eyal, all!
I also respectfully disagree with you on some points. ;D
I like the idea to move to 8, even with no big technical innovation (if
we
have, for sure it will be better).
IMHO, long sequences of minor releases (7.6, in the current case) are
getting boring and not important for the users (for both enterprise and
individual profiles).
I'm not saying that we should embrace the Firefox approach, but thinking
about Italo's idea (8 <-> infinite), I guess the message of this version
could be consolidation, not exactly innovation.
Best
Gustavo
On Tue, Mar 28, 2023 at 4:23 AM Eyal Rozenberg <eyalroz1@gmx.com> wrote:
I respectfully disagree with Italo.
First, about the "frame of reference". In my opinion, decisions such as
major version number bumping are not, first and foremost, marketing
decisions. That is a _consideration_, since the version number is
declarative than technical. But - such an action should be "truthful"
before being "marketable".
It is more important, in my opinion, that users and potential users
receive trustworthy signaling from the project - not just w.r.t. version
numbers, but generally - than for the media to get a gimmick for
coverage.
A second point is that bumping a version number without a major
innovation moves you a few more steps into the category of, say, Firefox
and such, where versions just increase automatically with no meaning
whatsoever. Italo, you said we are perceived as a "real innovator";
well, when a real innovator starts having hollow version number bumping,
that perception fades.
Finally, everyone who likes the marketing potential of version 8 -
great, but - keep that benefit for when we have a significant step
forward to celebrate. Don't squander it.
Eyal
PS: availability on a new platform is not a reason to bump a version
number. It's the "same" software, but built for another target, so same
version as before. IMHO anyway.
On 27/03/2023 20:11, Italo Vignoli wrote:
Moving to LibreOffice 8 (instead of 7.6) makes sense for marketing
purposes, as media is looking at LibreOffice as the real innovator in
the open source office suite market, and the feeling of journalists is
that we are forever stuck at 7.x.
We all know that the next version will not include any significant
innovation which can justify the change of version, apart from the new
build system for Windows and the availability of LibreOffice for Arm
processors on Windows (which has not been announced).
Playing with the number 8, which can be rotated 90° to become the
"infinite" symbol, we can frame the next version as LibreOffice for an
infinite number of users, as we cover all hardware platforms and all
operating systems for personal productivity.
This is my opinion. If the community wants to stick with 7.6, I won't
insist. I have received enough insults both public and private for the
marketing plan, and I am still receiving them from a few people, that
I
am not willing to enter into that process again (even if the decision
on
the "community" tag has not been mine, but it looks like people have a
very short memory).
Looking forward to your thoughts.
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